Change the World with Service Learning: How to Organize, Lead and Assess Service Learning Projects

Course Description:

Change the World with Service Learning is a course designed for busy teachers who want to integrate service learning into their existing curriculum. This class will guide teachers from all content areas and grade levels to create inspiring service-learning projects with students. Participants will find the course a step-by-step, teacher-to-teacher description of how to create, plan, teach, and celebrate service-learning projects that meet and exceed local, district, and national curricular expectations. Individual service learning plans will be developed with close guidance, so they will be ready for implementation during the new school year.

Course Topics
• An overview of the research about the many benefits of service learning on students
• A clear definition with examples of service learning, differentiating it from community service, and community based learning
• Instructions and Guidance about how to organize projects to meet local, district and national standards and curricular goals
• Determining curricular goals and building guiding questions
• Planning and Grouping considerations
• The team process, challenges and troubleshooting
• Planning Assessments and Reflection
• Planning and Leading the Culminating Event
• Securing Funding in a tight economy

Required Text
Change the World with Service Learning: How to Organize, Lead, and Assess Service Learning Projects by Katy Farber

Learning Outcomes & Competencies
• Participants will create an in-depth service-learning plan to meet current curricular goals, grade level expectations, and district goals.
• This plan will be based on their local curricular needs, topic areas, and communities.
• Participants will complete a service-learning project with students and write a reflective essay about the results.

About the Instructor

Katy Farber is a fifth and sixth grade teacher at Rumney Memorial School in Middlesex, Vermont. She is also the author of Why Great Teachers Quit and How We MIght Stop the Exodus, published by Corwin Press in July 2010, and Change the World with Service Learning: How to Organize, Lead and Assess Service Learning Projects, published by Rowman and Littlefield Education Press in December 2010. Katy has served as a service learning consultant, and her service learning projects have been featured in a film called, Is This Going To Be On The Test? Place-Based Learning: Kids Exploring Their Own Community by Noodlehead Networks. Katy is also the author of the popular green parenting blog, Non-Toxic Kids. She writes about how to keep children safe from chemicals and toxins, how to live a greener lifestyle, and covers current news stories about parenting and education.